If you ask me, marketcap doesn't mean too much and the race for the second place is also not important. What is important is how these two technologies will prove themselves in the long run.
technologically speaking, does ripple have any actual advantage over ethereum -for ripple to take over ether for good- to settle in the 2nd place?!
Or in terms of technology, they each have their own niches & their market value is mostly derived from their application & outside investment in their application; in that case, which of these two technologies you think are better developed & better marketed? which one you think would be better suited to invest in?
I don't see any technological advantage of XRP over Ethereum. It is also worth mentioning that technologically their platforms are totally different. It can be argued that the ETH blockchain is flawed, but even the way it is now is much more in line with the general idea how a crypto public ledger should look like. By contrast, Ripple is totally centralized and you cannot really say that it is a cryptocurrency at all. When you invest in XRP, you are basically investing in a company, which may be fine if that's what you want to do. Ethereum, on the other side has its own problems. Depending on whether or not they manage to solve them (e.g., will PoS work as it's supposed), it could be a good investment, or a total disaster.
I believe that both, xrp and eth are like investing in a company.
I agree with most of what you said, however i do think a cryptocurrencies can be centralized and still be a cryptocurrency.
Centralization is a characteristic thay will give more resilience and resistance against regulations, coercion, government interference, etc... But if xrp doesn't want this resistance (basically because it doesn't need it, as it will play by government and banks rules) that's not a problem and it will continue yo be a cryptocurrency.
If xrp makes someone angry, it can be shut down easier than other cryptocurrencies